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Semper Fidelis

I can still see the twin grooves the heels of his jungle boots made in the mud. Four friends were struggling to carry his body through the rain to the landing zone in the foothills of the Que Son Mountains. His legs dragged behind the poncho liner, while his head lolled back over the front edge, slack-jawed in that peculiar open-mouthed way that only death brings. He and the others—those for whom I wrote condolence letters to families back home—have returned to my thoughts more frequently in recent times.

He wasn't a model Marine—certainly by today's standards. He wore braided bracelets and necklaces of peace beads, and his graffiti-decorated helmet proclaimed his involvement with the black-power activism prevalent at the time. I had seen him on more than one occasion at informal discipline hearings—one in particular comes to mind: He had threatened an MP at the entrance to the Freedom Hill Post Exchange compound, after that worthy had objected to the ragged condition of his utilities and flak jacket—without duly regarding his locked-and-loaded M16 and the two grenades hanging from that flak jacket.

He was almost illiterate, unable to comprehend completely the entries in his service record book. In the rear, he was a real handful—and when time came to return to the bush. he was always vocal about not wanting to go back out. Going out the last time he had been "short," only three weeks to go, and had complained bitterly that he should have had a rear-area job at Landing Zone Baldy for the last little bit of his tour. He probably personified the problems that most people talk about when they are discussing the degradation in discipline and morale so prevalent in the Marine Corps, in all of the armed services, at the end of the Vietnam experience.

Speaking in 1996 at the National Press Club, Secretary of the Navy John Dalton contrasted the "men he had put up with" as a naval officer during the late 1960s and early 1970s" with [1996's] "best military the U.S. has ever had." Echoing that refrain, a recent well-received book about the combat history of the Marine Corps speaks slightingly of the "reluctant draftees" of the Vietnam era. In 1970, in Vietnam ...

That there were significant problems existing in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War is irrefutable. But assuming that the blame for any of those problems falls on some invidious suspect category of enlisted Marines is absurd; the combat record of all Marines during that conflict is not a matter in question. More Marines were killed and wounded in Vietnam than in any other conflict in U.S. history. Whatever their garrison problems, Marines fought that dirty and bloody action for more than a decade, a sacrifice that by and large was unwelcome, and certainly unappreciated. Although the Marine Corps made up about 10% of the forces deployed in Vietnam, one in four names on that black granite wall in Washington under Mr. Lincoln's gaze belongs to a Marine. Uncommon valor persisted as a common virtue.

All of these veterans deserve a better memory than the one presently in vogue—and those who may be required to lead the sons and daughters of the Vietnam generation in future combat would do well to reflect on their experience.

For now, I ask you to remember my Marine. As much as he complained, he went back out when the time came. The night the North Vietnamese hit us, he was there. When an RPG hit his hole, he did not cave. When his partner took a round and went down, he stood over him in the hole and fought it out. It wasn't an epic battle and it wasn't a glorious death. But he died a Marine, holding his position, facing the enemy, rifle in hand. And I don't much care what he had written on his helmet.

Lieutenant Colonel Richmond , an infantry officer and later a naval aviator, heads Richmond Insurance in West Union, Ohio. While on active duty in Vietnam, he led rifle platoons in the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines, and commanded L Company, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines.